A brief history of sock puppets

The puppet is an art that involves manufactured characters and, in the case of sock puppets, they are made of socks designed in different faces and accessories such as hats, glasses, cigars, etc. Sock puppets can be controlled with one hand, allowing the puppeteer to use the other hand for second hand or to control stage elements. A sock puppet stage is the size of a table and there can be nine to ten puppets on stage at one time.

Puppets were used in India in the 11th century and quickly spread to other parts of Asia. They were used as tools to give morality stories a visual impact that could not be conveyed in words. Puppets in history have been used to present good, evil, greed or jealousy at the risk of identifying the real characters. The puppets were made from sticks carved in ancient India and were mostly decorated.

Socks, which have been a form of footwear for centuries, began as matted animal hair shaped to be worn on the foot or inside a shoe. This technique was used by the ancient Greeks in 750 BC. The Romans have also innovated a thick fabric that could be wrapped around the legs in the shape of a sock.

Egyptian nomadic sheep herders invented weaving during the 12th century AD, they created cloth by simply using woolen yarn to weave through the use of straight twigs. It was a very advantageous technique and it allowed any pastor or wife to make a valuable product instead of selling their wool. This practice quickly spread from Egypt to the Middle East and Europe.

Almost quickly, Muslim weavers in Spain developed a variety of stitches that helped them make molded fabrics. The sock was one of the first knitted items to be produced. Historians certainly know that patterned socks were made as early as the 1200s and were decorated with intricate braid and Arabic verses. It can be speculated that sock puppets could have been invented during that time.

Until the Renaissance, knitted socks were the exclusive symbol of wealthy people. William Lee of England invented the first knitting machine in 1589 that transformed knitwear into something that everyone could buy. The fabric has the merit of transforming the textile industry and is the forerunner of the industrial age. After Shakespeare’s death, the Puritan movement was gaining momentum in England and traditional puppets were banned along with the theater. After the end of the Puritan times and the return of the monarchy, the puppets of Punch and Judy were commonly paired with hand or glove puppets.

Popular culture sock puppets have been used extensively on television shows, the most famous character being Lamb Chop, he was a sock puppet invented by Shari Lewis for ‘Hi Mom’, a WNBC show aired in 1957. The term Sock puppet is also used to describe a fictitious identity used online to promote a particular point of view or defend a person.